He ought to
know well enough where reason stops and religion begins. He ought to
know when to work, and when to pray. He ought to know the laws of
the sea and of the sky. But he ought to know too how to pray,
without asking God to alter those laws, as presumptuous and
superstitious men are wont to do.
Take as an instance the commonest of all--a storm. We know that
storms are not caused (as folk believed in old time) by evil spirits;
that they are natural phenomena, obeying certain fixed laws; that
they are necessary from time to time; that they are probably, on the
whole, useful.
And we know two ways of facing a storm, one of which you may see too
often among the boatmen of the Mediterranean--How a man shall say, I
know nothing as to how, or why, or when, a storm should come; and I
care not to know. If one falls on me, I will cry for help to the
Panagia, or St. Nicholas, or some other saint, and perhaps they will
still the storm by miracle. That is superstition, the child of
ignorance and fear.
And you may have seen what comes of that temper of mind. How, when
the storm comes, instead of order, you have confusion; instead of
courage, cowardice; instead of a calm and manly faith, a miserable
crying of every man to his own saint, while the vessel is left to
herself to sink or swim.
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